Firewall protection for wireless users

ABSTRACT

In a computer telecommunications network, firewalls protect a machine or network from undesired message transmissions. In the case of a firewall employed on a user side of the wireless link, a message rejected by the firewall has already consumed the wireless resources required to transmit. A system for protecting a mobile wireless user via a firewall employed at the wired line, or ISP side, of the wireless link in a wireless network allows a specific user profile to be provided for each user that is indicative of a desired firewall configuration corresponding to the mobile user. A firewall configuration is established at a firewall application in a wireless transceiver corresponding to the current location of the mobile user, and the same firewall configuration is established, via a wireless handoff, at a second wireless transceiver when the user is located in the area corresponding to the second wireless transceiver, thereby protecting a plurality of wireless users prior to wasteful wireless transmission of undesired messages.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.09/847,865, filed May 2, 2001. The entire teachings of the aboveapplication are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In a computer telecommunications network, firewalls are known which areused to protect a machine or network from undesired messagetransmissions. Undesired messages can burden resources such asprocessing and storage, can affect timely processing of other tasks, andmay also be the result of malicious activity by hackers, causing moreserious effects such as those caused by viruses, Trojan horses, andworms.

A firewall is typically located at a point of entry into a computersystem or network, such as a port or TCP/IP network interface, and scansincoming message traffic by comparing the message traffic to apredetermined criteria. Message traffic matching not matching thepredetermined criteria is discarded as undesired.

The criteria employed by a firewall to match and determine whether toaccept or reject message traffic typically include parameters such asport numbers, application IDs, source, destination, content filters, IPaddress, machine names, and TCP/IP flags, and can potentially includemany others depending on the complexity to be tolerated and the degreeof protection desired. The number of parameters to be matched indetermining wether to accept or reject message traffic determines agranularity of protection. Therefore, a firewall having a lowgranularity of criteria may inadvertently block desired incoming messagetraffic as undesired, and may not be adequate to protect against someundesired traffic.

Further, telecommunications networks may comprise wired and wirelesslinks. A wireless link is typically provided between a base stationprocessor and a subscriber access unit which exchange messages accordingto a wireless protocol such as IS_(—)95 or other proprietary wirelessprotocol. The subscriber access unit is connected to the user computersystem or network, and the base station processor is connected to apublic access network such as the Internet. In a typical wireless link,a firewall is employed in the subscriber access unit, or in a subsequentgateway into the machine or network to be protected. Alternatively, thefirewall may be employed in the computer system defining the accesspoint to the network on the user side of the wireless link.

The wireless link, however, is supported by RF channels, which are ascarce resource that is allocated among many connections supported overthe wireless link. Since the firewall is employed on the user side ofthe wireless link, a message rejected by the firewall has alreadyconsumed the wireless resources required to transmit. Accordingly,messages rejected by the firewall tend to waste bandwidth which could beallocated to other connections, can drive up user cost by increasingmessage transmissions, and tend to slow overall throughput because ofthe resources required to transmit them over the wireless link.

In other systems, the firewall may be employed on the wired network sideof the wireless link, thereby detecting undesired transmissions prior totransmission from the base station processor or other wirelesstransceiver in communication with the subscriber access unit. However, atypical base station processor typically supports many subscriber accessunits corresponding to many different users. Therefore, locating thefirewall on the base station processor side of the firewall removeswireless burden, but forces all users to conform to the same firewall.

However, different users may wish to protect a network or systemaccording to varying degrees of granularity. One user may wish to rejectall transmissions from a particular TCP/IP network address, and anothermay not. Or a particular user may wish to accept traffic only from aparticular subnet address of a network, while another user may wish toaccept all transmissions from the network address. Still other users maywish to accept message traffic only destined for a particular port, orapplication, while others may wish to block incoming connectionsaltogether, and allow only outgoing connections. Various permutations ofuser granularity may be desired by different users.

Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a system and method forprotecting a mobile wireless user via a firewall in a wireless networkto allows a specific user profile to be provided for each userindicative of a desired firewall configuration corresponding to themobile user.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In a wireless communication network, a mobile user may be served by morethan one wireless transceiver as the mobile user travels from onewireless sector to another wireless sector. A method and system forprotecting a mobile wireless user via a firewall employed at the wiredline, or ISP side, of the wireless link in a wireless network allows aspecific user profile to be provided for each user that is indicative ofa desired firewall configuration corresponding to the mobile user. Awireless subscriber access unit corresponding to the mobile user isoperable for wireless communication with the wireless transceiver. Afirewall configuration is established at a firewall application in thewireless transceiver corresponding to the current location of the mobileuser, and the same firewall configuration is established, via a wirelesshandoff, at a second wireless transceiver when the user is located inthe area corresponding to the second wireless transceiver.

In the wireless network, each mobile user initially signs on with awireless transceiver, such as a base station processor, corresponding tothe area in which the user is located. The base station processoraccesses a central repository, such as a Wireless Internet Facility(WIF), operable to store a mobile user profile indicative of desiredfirewall configuration corresponding to the particular mobile user, andmay also indicate other transmission parameters to be applied towireless communications with the particular mobile user. A uniqueidentifier corresponding to the mobile user is invoked to lookup themobile user profile. The unique identifier may be an electronic serialnumber (ESN), a subscriber ID, or other identifier adapted to identifythe mobile user. The WIF transmits the mobile user profile correspondingto the mobile user, and the base station processor establishes thedesired firewall configuration for the particular mobile user. As thesame base station processor may serve many mobile users, a plurality ofdesired firewall configurations are likely to be active, eachcorresponding to a particular one of the mobile users.

As the mobile user moves, an area corresponding to another base stationprocessor may be entered, thereby triggering a wireless handoff from thefirst base station to the second. The second base station receives themobile use profile from the WIF employing the unique identifier, andreceives the corresponding mobile user profile. The second base stationprocessor then establishes the same firewall configuration as the mobileuser travels into the area corresponding to the second base stationprocessor.

Further, as the base station processor is providing the desired firewallconfiguration, rather than the subscriber access unit on an opposed sideof the wireless link, the wireless link is not burdened withtransmissions which are blocked by the firewall. In this manner, a userwill not be charged with transmissions which would be ultimatelydiscarded by the firewall, and the base station processor is notburdened with allocating bandwidth to undesired transmissions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a prior art firewall implementation in acommunications network;

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a system operable for firewallprotection for wireless users as defined herein;

FIG. 3 shows a handoff of a wireless user from one base station toanother;

FIG. 4 a shows a user profile table stored at a Wireless InternetFacility;

FIG. 4 b shows a statefull table for state based firewall protection;

FIG. 5 shows an example of a firewall user profile employed forselective packet transmission among multiple users in the same cell; and

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of firewall protection.

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of theinvention will be apparent from the following more particulardescription of preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated inthe accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer tothe same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are notnecessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustratingthe principles of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A description of preferred embodiments of the invention follows.

The present application describes a system and method for establishing afirewall configuration corresponding to a mobile wireless user whichcontinues to provide consistent firewall protection between differentsubscriber access units as the user moves from an area served by onewireless transceiver, such as a base station processor, into an areaserved by another base station processor, wherein the firewallconfiguration may be different from that of another mobile wirelessuser.

FIG. 1 shows a typical prior art firewall in a wireless communicationsystem having a wireless link. Referring to FIG. 1, a prior artcommunication system 10 is shown. A user PC 12 or other access pointinto a user computer system or local area network is in communicationwith a subscriber access unit 14 via a wireline connection 20. Thewireline connection 20 may be any suitable wired medium such as TCP/IP,Ethernet, or direct connection. The subscriber access unit 14 is incommunication with a wireless transceiver, such as the base stationprocessor 16, via a wireless link 24, and is operable to transmitwireless messages in an RF medium between the subscriber access unit 14and the base station processor 16. The base station processor 16 isconnected to the Internet 18 or other public access network via theInternet connection 22. The Internet connection 22 may also be anysuitable wired line connection, such as TCP/IP, UDP/IP, Ethernet, T1line, POTS (plain old telephone system) or other wired medium. Afirewall 19 is located on the wireline connection 20 between the user PC12 and subscriber access unit 14, and protects the PC 12 againstundesired messages which are sent across the wireless link 24, as shownby the orientation of the firewall 19 symbol. Note that the drawingshows the firewall 19 physically drawn between the PC 12 and thesubscriber access unit 14 for exemplary purposes only, illustrating thelogical link between the reception of the wireless transmissions and theentry point into the user network denoted by the user PC 12. Actualimplementations would likely implement the firewall 19 inside either thesubscriber access unit 14 or the PC 12. The positioning of the firewall19 indicates the logical orientation in that it protects undesiredmessage traffic from traveling from the subscriber access unit 14 to theentry point of the user computer system or local area network, denotedhere as user PC 12.

In the system shown in prior art FIG. 1, the message traffic is sentover the wireless link 24 to the subscriber access unit 14 before itreaches the firewall 19. Therefore, undesired messages have alreadyconsumed wireless resources at the point that they are determined to beundesirable. In the case of a user that may be charged a fee forindividual message transmission, charges would accrue for the undesiredmessages. Even if the user is not charged per message, suchtransmissions nonetheless consume wireless resources, such as wirelesschannels, for undesired transmissions, in the base station processor 16,compromising the resources available to all users 12 who may also beserved by the same base station processor.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a system operable for firewallprotection for wireless users as defined herein. Referring to FIG. 2,the configurable firewall system 30 is operable for wirelesscommunication between a user PC 12 and the Internet 18 via wired 20, 22and wireless 24 links between a subscriber access unit 14 and a basestation processor 16. A firewall application 32 is located between thebase station processor 16 and the Internet 18. Note that the location ofthe firewall application 32 denotes a logical point between the Internetand access to the wireless network served by the base station processor.Such a firewall application may actually execute in the base stationprocessor 16 or in an Internet gateway (not shown) between the basestation processor and the Internet 18, provided that the firewallapplication is located between the wireless connection 24 to thesubscriber access units 14 and the Internet connection.

In such a wireless communication network, each base station processor 16typically serves many subscriber access units 14 a . . . 14 n,generally, as will be described further below. The wireless connection24 includes a plurality of wireless channels, which further comprise aplurality of wireless connections, each connection to a particularsubscriber access unit 14. Further, a subscriber access unit 14 may havemultiple connections to the base station processor 16. Since thefirewall application 32 is protecting the network at a point prior tothe connections to each of the subscriber access units 14, the firewallapplication may establish a firewall configuration specific to each ofthe subscriber access units. The firewall configuration is determinedfrom a mobile user profile, which is indicative of a set of firewallcharacteristics desired by the particular subscriber access unit 14. Themobile user profile is stored at a central repository such as a wirelessInternet facility 34, and is downloaded to the base station processor 16for each subscriber access unit 14 as the subscriber access unit 14signs on or enters the cell served by the base station processor 16.Accordingly, each subscriber access unit is provided firewall protectionby the firewall application 32 according to a specific mobile userprofile before undesired transmissions have consumed wireless resources,or channels, to transmit the undesired transmissions over the wirelesslink 24. Further, since the mobile user profile is stored at the WIF 34,it follows the user through a handoff from cell to cell, describedfurther below, since it may be downloaded from the WIF by other basestations serving adjacent cells.

FIG. 3 shows a handoff of a wireless user from one base station toanother. Referring to FIG. 3, three cells 36 a, 36 b, and 36 c, areserved by base stations 16 a, 16 b, and 16 c, respectively, via antennas38 a, 38 b, 38 c. Four subscriber access units 14 a-14 d are also shownin their respective cells. Subscriber access unit 14 a is located incell 36 a, and is powered on, receiving wireless signals from basestation processor 16 a, as shown by dotted line arrow 40. The basestation processor 16 a receives the mobile user profile corresponding tosubscriber 14 a, from a user profile table in the WIF 34, describedfurther below with respect to FIG. 4. The base station processor 16 aestablishes a firewall configuration indicative of the firewallcharacteristics in the mobile user profile in the firewall application32 a. Such firewall characteristics may include, for example, portnumbers, application IDs, source, destination, content filters, IPaddress, and TCP/IP flags. Other characteristics may be employeddepending on the level of protection and the complexity desired by thesubscriber access unit 14 a.

Subsequently, the subscriber access unit 14 a moves into cell 36 b, atposition 14 a′, as shown by arrow 42. The base station processor 16 breceives the same mobile user profile corresponding to subscriber 14 afrom the WIF 34. A handoff manager 35 in the base station processor 16 bthen establishes the firewall configuration indicative of the firewallcharacteristics in the firewall application 32 b. In this manner, asubscriber access unit 14 a is provided a consistent firewallconfiguration according to the mobile user profile as the subscriber 14a moves from cell to cell.

FIG. 4 a shows the user profile table stored at a Wireless InternetFacility. Referring to FIG. 4 a, the firewall characteristics 40 whichmay be stored according to a user are shown. The user profile table 42stores user profile entries 46 corresponding to the subscriber accessunits 14. Each subscriber access unit 14 has one or more entries 46 inthe user profile table 42. A subscriber ID is shown in column 44 a, andidentifies the particular subscriber to which this entry 46 applies. Theaggregate set of entries 46 corresponding to the mobile user profile fora particular user define the firewall configuration for this particularsubscriber access unit. Four entries 46 are shown as exemplary; it isexpected that multiple entries 46 would be employed for each of manysubscriber access units 14. Alternative arrangements of tables may beemployed, as long as the tables associate a particular subscriber accessunit with a set of firewall characteristics.

For each user profile entry 46, values for applicable firewallcharacteristics 40 are shown, including whether matching message trafficis to be allowed or restricted 44 h. For each characteristic 40, a valueis provided. The characteristics shown are consistent with the TCP/IPprotocol employed on the Internet, and include port number 44 b to whichthe message is directed; application ID 44 c of the message; source IPaddress of the message 44 d; destination IP address 44 e to which themessage is directed; direction 44 f, indicating incoming or outgoingmessage traffic; and TCP/IP flags 44 g employed for control, such as SYN(synchronize) and FIN (finish) bits. An intrusion detection field 44 i,described further below, indicates whether further firewall processingwill be performed, also described further below with respect to FIG. 4b. Other characteristics can be employed in accordance with theparticular protection desired.

For example, user profile entry 48 b, corresponding to subscriber accessunit 14 b, indicates that message traffic from a source IP address 44 dof 127.0.0.0 is to be restricted, thus blocking the entire 127.0.0.0network. However, entry 48 c, also corresponding to subscriber accessunit 14 b, indicates that message traffic from source IP address 44 d127.104.0.19 is to be allowed, thus restricting a broad range of userswith the exception of one particular source address.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the firewall user profile of FIG. 4 aemployed for selective packet transmission among multiple users in thesame cell. Referring to FIGS. 4 a and 5, subscriber access units 14 band 14 c are both in the cell 36 c. Messages destined for bothsubscribers 14 b and 14 c are sent from the Internet 18, as shown byarrow 50. Subscriber access unit 14 b however, receives only messagescorresponding to its firewall configuration as represented by the userprofile entries 48 b and 48 c, as shown by arrow 52. Similarly,subscriber access unit 14 c receives only messages corresponding to itsfirewall configuration as represented by the user profile entry 48 d, asshown by arrow 54. Accordingly, the firewall application 32 c enforces auser specific firewall configuration for each of the subscriber accessunits 14 b and 14 c according to a particular mobile user profile asdefined in the user profile table 42.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4 a, firewall protection is carried outin a stateless manner. A stateless manner is a protection scheme whichexamines each packet atomically, and does not look to any information inprevious packets. In other words, no state is maintained aboutinformation which may be obtained by a sequence of packets considered asa whole. Each packet is considered individually, and acceptance orrejection of the packet determined by information in the packet alone.

A state oriented, or statefull, manner of firewall protection considersnot only the information contained in the current packet, but also theinformation in previous packets in conjunction with the current packet.In other words, a group of packets may be indicative of undesiredmessage traffic even though any single packet in the group, whenconsidered alone, is not necessarily undesired. A statefull manner offirewall protection maintains a series of states according to apredetermined set of rules. As packets are received, certain packets mayindicate a trend toward various types of message traffic. The state isadjusted, according to the predetermined set of rules, as additionalpackets are received. Certain states define an indication of undesiredmessage traffic. When such states are attained, firewall protection isthen invoked.

The predetermined set of rules which define the states are orientedtowards a particular type of undesired message traffic. Typically, aprotected entity will invoke multiple sets of rules, each to protectagainst a particular type of undesired message traffic. Also, there maybe multiple sets of rules directed towards the same general type ofundesired message traffic, each with varying degrees of specificityand/or granularity with which the rules scrutinize traffic. A highgranularity or specificity may unintentionally block desired messagetraffic, while a low granularity or specificity may inadvertently allowunintended message traffic.

As indicated above, there may be multiple sets of rules, each directedtowards particular types of undesired message traffic. Such unintendedtypes include denial of service, password cracking, port scanning, virusdetection, content filters, and others which are known in firewallprotection schemes, often collectively referred to as intrusiondetection schemes. For example, a denial of service set of rules mayexamine a set of packets looking for repetitive attempts to open aconnection on the same port, but without closing, thereby consumingresources available to other users. A port scan set of rules looks for aport scan attack, which is an attempt to open every available port on anode. Similarly, a password cracking set of rules would look forrepetitive patterns in passwords, such as incremental passwords directedto the same port, or the same password iteratively applied to a sequenceof ports. A content filters set of rules is employed to filter messagesbased on subjective data contained therein. Various embodimentsemploying alternative sets of rules may be employed, such as thosedisclosed in Cheswick, et al., Firewalls and Internet Security:Repelling the Wily Hacker, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, © 1994AT&T Bell Laboratories, Inc., incorporated herein by reference.

FIG. 4 b shows a statefull table of firewall protection for use inconjunction with the firewall user profile described above with respectto FIG. 4 a. Referring to FIG. 4 b, a state oriented table of firewallprotection 60 is shown. As indicated above, one of the entries in theuser profile table is an intrusion detection field. A “Y” entry in theintrusion detection field indicates that the subscriber also desiresstatefull firewall protection as defined in the statefull firewallprotection table 60. The statefull table 60 has a plurality of statefullentries 61, each containing a subscriber 68 field and an intrusiondetection routine 70 entry. Each of the subscriber entries 62 a-62 fcontains the identity of a subscriber 14 n to which the entrycorresponds, and can contain an arbitrary number of entries, denoted 62n. Each of the intrusion detection routines 70 contains a correspondingentry having a pointer 66 a-66 f to the set of rules for the particulartype of firewall protection desired, respectively. Each of the pointerspoints to a set of rules 64 n generally, as indicated by the arrows.

Continuing to refer to FIG. 4 b, subscriber 14 a desires protectionprovided by denial of service 1 rules 64 a, as shown by statefull table60 entry 62 a and pointer 66 a. Also, subscriber 14 a desires protectionby virus detection 1 64 c rules, as indicated by entry 62 c. Subscriber14 c desires protection by denial of service 2 64 b rules, virusdetection 1 64 c rules concurrently with subscriber 14 a, content filter64 d rules, and virus detection 2 64 w rules, as shown by entries 62 b,62 d, 62 e, and 62 f, respectively. Subscriber 14 c may desire bothvirus protection 1 64 c and virus protection 2 64 e because each mayprotect against a different set of viruses. Similarly, as bothsubscribers 14 a and 14 c desire virus protection 1 64 c, the intrusiondetection routine 70 entry 66 c and 66 d both point the virus protection1 64 c set of rules.

In a typical embodiment, the sets of rules 64 a-64 e are software coderoutines operable to examine the information in message packets, howevercould be implemented in hardware or firmware or other medium. Similarly,the statefull table 60 and intrusion detection routine 70 pointerdisclosed here could be implemented by alternative embodiments known tothose skilled in the art. For example, the intrusion detection 44 ientry (FIG. 4 a) could itself be a pointer to set of intrusion detectionrules 64 a-64 e. Further, additional sets of rules 64 n could beimplemented depending upon the level of complexity and the computing andmemory resources available, and may be implemented by a variety ofpointer, indexing, or other addressing techniques.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of firewall protection as defined herein.Referring to FIG. 6, an incoming message is received on a wired side ofa wireless link, as depicted at step 100. A destination subscriberaccess unit to which the message is directed via the wireless link isdetermined, as shown at step 102. Prior to transmission over thewireless link, the user profile table is parsed to determine if thereare any entries corresponding to the destination subscriber access unit,as disclosed at step 104. A check is performed to determine if anyentries are found for this subscriber access unit, as disclosed at step105. If no entries are found, then the message is transmitted via thewireless link, as disclosed at step 122. If there are entriescorresponding to the destination subscriber access unit, the entry isparsed to examine the stateless firewall parameters for this entry, asdepicted at step 106. A check is performed to determine if any of thestateless entries indicate undesired message traffic, as shown at step108. If any of the entries indicate undesired message traffic, themessage is discarded, as shown at step 110, and control reverts to step100 to wait for the next message. Typically, undesired message trafficmay also result in a message or log entry being written for operatorreview. If the stateless entries do not indicate undesired messagetraffic, then the intrusion detection entry is examined to determine ifa statefull check is indicated by this entry, as shown at step 112. If astatefull check is not indicated, then the message is transmitted viathe wireless link, as shown at disclosed at step 122, and controlreverts to step 100 to wait for the next message to be received. If astatefull check is indicated, then the statefull table is parsed to findan entry corresponding to this subscriber, as shown at step 114. Thecorresponding intrusion detection routine is invoked via the pointerfrom the table, as depicted at step 116. The state is then updated toreflect the newly arrived packet, as shown at step 118. A check isperformed to determine if this entry triggers a state indicative ofundesired message traffic, as indicated at step 120. If so, than themessage is discarded, as shown at step 124, and control reverts to step100. If no undesired message traffic is indicated, then the message istransmitted over the wireless link, as depicted at step 122, and controlreverts to step 100 for the next message to be received.

Those skilled in the art should readily appreciate that the programsdefining the firewall application defined herein are deliverable to asubscriber access unit and to a base station processor in many forms,including but not limited to a) information permanently stored onnon-writeable storage media such as ROM devices, b) informationalterably stored on writeable storage media such as floppy disks,magnetic tapes, CDs, RAM devices, and other magnetic and optical media,or c) information conveyed to a computer through communication media,for example using baseband signaling or broadband signaling techniques,as in an electronic network such as the Internet or telephone modemlines. The operations and methods may be implemented in a softwareexecutable by a processor or as a set of instructions embedded in acarrier wave. Alternatively, the operations and methods may be embodiedin whole or in part using hardware components, such as ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), state machines, controllers orother hardware components or devices, or a combination of hardware,software, and firmware components.

While the system and method for firewall protection has beenparticularly shown and described with references to embodiments thereof,it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changesin form and details may be made therein without departing from the scopeof the invention encompassed by the appended claims. Accordingly, thepresent invention is not intended to be limited except by the followingclaims.

1. A method of providing protection for wireless access units in awireless communications network via a firewall application, the methodcomprising: obtaining profile information associated with a firstwireless access unit; establishing a first firewall configuration forthe first wireless access unit at the firewall application from theobtained profile information associated with the first wireless accessunit; obtaining profile information associated with a second wirelessaccess unit; and establishing a second firewall configuration for thesecond wireless access unit at the firewall application from theobtained profile information associated with the second wireless accessunit.
 2. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein the profile informationassociated with the first and second wireless access units is obtainedfrom a central repository.
 3. A method as defined in claim 2 wherein thecentral repository is a wireless Internet facility.
 4. A method asdefined in claim 1 wherein each wireless access unit is associated witha unique identifier.
 5. A method as defined in claim 4 wherein theunique identifier is an electronic serial number (ESN) associated withthe wireless access unit.
 6. A method as defined in claim 4 wherein theunique identifier is a subscriber identifier (ID) associated withwireless access unit.
 7. A method as defined in claim 4 furthercomprising: using a unique identifier associated with the first wirelessaccess unit to obtain the profile information associated with the firstwireless access unit.
 8. A method as defined in claim 1 furthercomprising: receiving a message destined for the first wireless accessunit; determining if the message is undesired based on the obtainedprofile information associated with the first wireless unit; and if themessage is undesired, discarding the message.
 9. A method as defined inclaim 8 wherein the step of determining if the message is undesiredfurther comprises: examining stateless firewall parameters contained inthe obtained profile information associated with the first wireless unitto determine if the message is undesired.
 10. A method as defined inclaim 8 wherein the step of determining if the message is undesiredfurther comprises: determining if a stateful check is indicated in theprofile information obtained for the first wireless unit; if a statefulcheck is indicated, updating intrusion detection state associated withthe first wireless unit; and examining the updated intrusion detectionstate to determine if the message is undesired.
 11. A base station forproviding protection for wireless subscriber access units in a wirelesscommunications network via a firewall application, the base stationcomprising: a firewall application configured to: (a) provide protectionfor wireless access units in the wireless communications network; andprocessing circuitry configured to: (a) obtain profile informationassociated with a first wireless access unit, (b) establish a firstfirewall configuration for the first wireless access unit at thefirewall application from the obtained profile information associatedwith the first wireless access unit, (c) obtain profile informationassociated with a second wireless access unit, and (d) establish asecond firewall configuration for the second wireless access unit at thefirewall application from the obtained profile information associatedwith the second wireless access unit.
 12. A base station as defined inclaim 11 wherein the profile information associated with the first andsecond wireless access units is obtained from a central repository. 13.A base station as defined in claim 12 wherein the central repository isa wireless Internet facility.
 14. A base station as defined in claim 11wherein the each wireless access unit is associated with a uniqueidentifier.
 15. A base station as defined in claim 14 wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to: (a) use a uniqueidentifier associated with the first wireless access unit to obtain theprofile information associated with the first wireless access unit. 16.A base station as defined in claim 11 wherein the processing circuitryis further configured to: (a) receive a message destined for the firstwireless access unit, (b) determining if the message is undesired basedon the obtained profile information associated with the first wirelessunit, and (c) discard the message if the message is undesired.
 17. Anapparatus for providing protection for wireless subscriber access unitsin a wireless communications network via a firewall application, theapparatus comprising: means for obtaining profile information associatedwith a first wireless access unit; means for establishing a firstfirewall configuration for the first wireless access unit at thefirewall application from the obtained profile information associatedwith the first wireless access unit; means for obtaining profileinformation associated with a second wireless access unit; and means forestablishing a second firewall configuration for the second wirelessaccess unit at the firewall application from the obtained profileinformation associated with the second wireless access unit.
 18. Anapparatus as defined in claim 17 further comprising: means for using aunique identifier associated with the first wireless access unit toobtain the profile information associated with the first wireless accessunit.
 19. An apparatus as defined in claim 17 further comprising: meansfor receiving a message destined for the first wireless access unit;means for determining if the message is undesired based on the obtainedprofile information associated with the first wireless unit; and meansfor discarding the message if the message is undesired.
 20. An apparatusas defined in claim 19 further comprising: means for examining statelessfirewall parameters contained in the obtained profile informationassociated with the first wireless unit to determine if the message isundesired.
 21. An apparatus as defined in claim 19 further comprising:means for determining if a stateful check is indicated in the profileinformation obtained for the first wireless unit; means for updatingintrusion detection state associated with the first wireless unit if astateful check is indicated; and means for examining the updatedintrusion detection state to determine if the message is undesired.